


Even Landlocked Lovers Yearn for the Sea

by rosepetalrevolution



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Breakup, Broken Up, Character Death, Depression, Drug Use, F/F, Guns, oof this one hurts even now years later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 14:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19443625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosepetalrevolution/pseuds/rosepetalrevolution
Summary: This was written for a HaruMichi Same Prompt Party back in 2015 - I can't believe I never posted it here, because I think it's one of my best.The prompt was "The memory of you emerges from the night around me," written by the one and only Pablo Neruda. I interpreted that... thusly.





	Even Landlocked Lovers Yearn for the Sea

It had been four years, but Michiru hadn’t yet been able to forget. No battles, no monsters, no death for four years. No missions, no plans. No senshi. No family. No Haruka.

The end of the war had been more difficult than the fighting itself. At least they’d all been able to pretend they knew each other, and themselves, in the heat of battle. They’d had to pretend – it was their devotion to one another, sometimes personified in Usagi herself, that had saved them time and again. They’d died together and come back together and one would think that such experiences were enough to form bonds amongst a group of young women. Maybe they were, in some cases; but not for Michiru.

After Ami had left in the second year of the peace, finally studying abroad in Germany as she’d always hoped to do, Michiru realized what she had to do. Had to do. It felt so strange to describe this choice in the same words she and Haruka had used to justify their methods, their priorities, their choices. Sacrifice. Murder. These were things they’d had to do, and Michiru knew it. Leaving, that was something she wanted to do.

They’d all come to terms with the end of the battles in different ways. Mako and Ami had been relieved, content to return to the interests and pursuits they’d always had, the primary difference now being the company of friends. Usagi and Mamoru found ways to distract themselves, moving along in life together with the knowledge that there’d someday be a palace for them to live in, a kingdom for them to rule, a princess for them to raise and love.

Rei was depressed; there was no doubt about it. The end of the war wasn’t what hit her hardest, although Michiru could tell that she missed her duties as a guardian. But with no oncoming threats, no urgent crises, Rei felt her senses dull. The fire showed her less than she wanted to see, and while Rei knew that was a good thing for the rest of humanity, it left her feeling disconnected from herself.

Then there was Minako, who’d long professed her desire for the fighting to end so that she could focus on her career. If only that’s what she had done. The girl had run away from home, used her cunning and skills to find new places to stay each night. She’d disappear for weeks on end, returning to report that she’d found no monsters in Argentina, that the threat really did seem to be all clear. She began picking fights, donning the mask once again to stop bank robberies, small time scams, any petty crime she could interfere with. The only times she seemed to be alive were those when she showed up on Haruka and Michiru’s doorstep with a split lip and a story to tell.

Setsuna was gone. Hotaru, too. There was no family now. Apparently there never had been. Relationships could serve an instrumental function, Michiru repeated to herself each night. There was no reason to be bitter when their fate was dictated by the universe.

And Haruka. She’d tried too hard to let it all go. She returned to racing, training for marathons, playing the piano, finding part time work. But school, the return to normal teenage life, did nothing for her.

At first, time for the two of them to focus on their relationship was welcomed. Without the threats and the guilt and the duties, they could simply be together. Another trip around the world, another (albeit smaller) home to build and furnish, another honeymoon period. They were happy, that first peaceful year.

But Minako started turning up more frequently; Rei had banned her from the shrine. With Mako expecting the first baby and Usagi and Mamoru living together, she had far fewer places to go. Michiru knew it was a bad idea, though a part of her loved Mina dearly. There was no fighting Haruka, though. She clung so tightly to the girls, to Minako in particular, that Michiru felt guilt at letting her own relationships slip or fade. But what was there to bring them together, now?

Eventually, Minako stopped showing up at the house; instead, Haruka started slipping out at night. Michiru rarely slept, though she’d never admit it to anyone. No one else seemed to be having nightmares still, after all this time – maybe Usagi, but the two women could not relate in any other way, so they’d never talk about the memories. But no one else had been complicit in the murder of her best friend and adoptive daughter, not without being entirely certain that such a maneuver was part of a worthwhile plan. Sure, she and Haruka could have communicated with little more than eye contact at that time, but Michiru had taken the biggest gamble of them all that fateful day. What if she’d been wrong, and Haruka really had wanted to betray the Sailor Senshi? Michiru would have killed her most beloved ones without a thought. She’d been willing to, and it would never leave her thoughts.

Haruka was obviously suffering. It’s not easy to go from full-time super heroine to part-time mechanic, but that’s what had happened. There was no surprise that Minako had successfully reached out to her. Their bond was one that wouldn’t fade, wouldn’t be left behind when one departed without the other. Reckless and desperate to just feel something, the blondes were the only ones to use their powers anymore, to go out looking for trouble. Minako couldn’t let go of the excitement; Haruka couldn’t let go of the danger.

Michiru left after Minako dragged Haruka’s bruised body through the door. Blood trickled from her mouth, her breathing raspy, as she lay on the couch with Sailor V tending her wounds. Some of the older women from the Orchestra had long ago told Michiru that love at 16 often does not last. It was sad that she was old enough, experienced enough, to know at 19 that love often does not last at any age. She was tired. There was nothing else she could provide to Haruka, who now needed the fight more than anything.

So she left, first to a town two hours outside of Tokyo. It was too quiet, though, and while Michiru craved peace, she did not want to be left alone with her own thoughts and memories. Hesitant to move any further, though, she did not want to cut all her ties. She knew that Rei needed her, that she was a casualty of the same hurricane that had destroyed the home that Michiru had built with Haruka. And Usagi… Ami had said the peace would last for quite a few more years, but a part of Michiru was then still bound by some loyalty. Whether it was to a princess or a queen or a clumsy girl whose friendship had changed some small, but integral, thing inside her, Michiru couldn’t tell.

But the news began to come in, first through papers and then on the television. Two Sailor Senshi had been sighted for the first time in two and a half years. The people speculated as to whether or not Japan was in danger once again, where the rest of the Sailor team could be, whether these were even the same Senshi as before. A lucky young photographer had earned her paycheck one evening by being in the right place at the right time; the front page shot featured the two blonde soldiers standing back to back, the moonlight shimmering down upon them, two faces wearing masks above cocky smirks.

Haruka had tried to call, of course. And write. And visit. Michiru yearned for her presence, her heart and soul aching at her mind’s repeated insistence that there was nothing to salvage, not while Haruka still fought. She was sure that her former partner was suffering just as much – probably even more. But their life together held nothing but pain for Michiru now, so she chose to bear the burden on her own.

She was too close to the sea, she decided, so she packed up once again and got on a plane. Only Rei knew when she left – she’d asked her one remaining friend to give her a week’s head start before telling the others. Prague was beautiful, of course, as she’d always known it to be. A new job with the symphony orchestra, a comfortable flat with a lazy Persian cat, friendly young women who she met at cafes and joined for book clubs or shopping trips. Her search for peace had driven her from her home, away from her loved ones, away from the things that once kept her grounded. But now she was landlocked, finally able to sleep at night without fear of drifting away from the shore.

The news from Japan began to reach her before the nightmares this time. Masked vigilantes had begun leaving the bodies of suspected criminals in their wake. It had scared few people when their victims were common thieves, pimps, and drug dealers, but then wealthy men suspected of embezzlement and fraud stopped coming home from work at night, one by one. The nation was in a panic, as imitators had appeared in Osaka and Nagoya. The seemingly uncatchable warriors now less resembled the Sailor Senshi of the past, instead inspiring fear within much of the community and prompting massive police responses.

Michiru could only cry when she read the reports. Usagi must be torn apart by what was happening to her friends; Rei and Ami would be concerned over the implications of such a bad image for the Senshi’s future missions and inevitable return. Minako and Haruka had really done it, it seemed. They were both so unlikely to wind up in prison, so it seemed to Michiru that this could only end with them dead or banished from the future reunited Sailor Team, and thus likely Crystal Tokyo. Whether they were more a liability to themselves or their friends, she did not know. She only knew that it was not, could not be her problem any longer.

But destiny is a spiteful bitch, and always did have it out for Michiru Kaioh. She’d have traded her powers for nearly any small compensation, once driven too close to the edge by her desire to end the misery of seeing and hearing and being called to the front lines. Prague had seemed a safe haven from them for a while, another two years passing as she built a normal life, free from interference, away from the sea. But there was nowhere on earth where she could escape the wind.

The first nightmare left her drenched in sweat, tears already streaming down her face when she woke with an ugly sob in her throat. Minako’s face at sixteen, first covered by a mask, then covered in bruises and blood. Usagi crying out to some benevolent god or mother who would not answer. Pluto and Saturn fading away into nothingness as Haruka spitefully smiled down upon them. Haruka laughing, Haruka crying, Haruka watching in horror as Michiru gave her last breath to save her. Haruka.

She turned to pills, not to help her sleep, but to help her stay awake. On the nights that she dreamed, there was no rest. It was only in the daylight that Michiru was safe from her memories, her emotions, and her powers. And so she threw herself into her work more than ever before. The paintings were now red and sharp, no icy layers hiding the burning, bitter core. She pushed her playing to a new edge, traipsing along the line between genius and madness that one can’t possibly walk without falling from time to time. New lovers were treated to raw passion unlike anything they’d ever seen, but it was so obvious that the desire was not directed at them, but instead inward, Michiru’s desire to twist whatever knife she’d left in her heart. None of them, none of this, lasted long.

The dreams became more frequent, although they were nearly always the same. She had glanced at the mirror only once, removing it from the hiding place in a box on the top shelf of her closet. The glass had gone dull, and there was nothing to see. These dreams were not of an impending threat to the earth or the princess, but of the only forces that could destroy her. She was determined to not let them.

One night, the dream was different. She’d still seen Mina and Usagi, but the scene changed to Rei, eyes closed, praying at the fire. Without speaking, Rei’s voice carried to Michiru. “Don’t come back. Stay far away. It’s the only way that you can stay safe. We need you to stay away, Michiru. If you have any loyalty to us, to your duty, to me, please. Don’t come back to Tokyo.” A great gust of wind, defying physics and logic, snuffed out the mystical flame, and Rei was gone. From the darkness, Michiru heard a voice, first faint and childlike, then familiar. “Michiru. Michiru. Michiru. Answer me, Michiru. Answer me!” Haruka appeared in her mind’s eye, bloodied and bruised and brought to her knees. Her eyes pleaded with the one she looked up at, and her lip quivered with the fear of not being answered. Michiru contemplated this sight, the only woman she’d ever loved, but who was just as guilty of turning her back on their life together as she was. Haruka had always been running toward this place, and inside herself she knew it. Now Michiru saw her at the inevitable end of the line. But within a split second, an arm extended from the shadows, and Michiru saw that Haruka was not looking up to her. The barrel of a pistol pressed against Haruka’s forehead, and even before Michiru could cry out or reject her subconscious, the gun fired.

She woke with a scream, Haruka’s name escaping her mouth, her lungs, her heart, her entire being for the first time in four years. Terror set in over Michiru as she realized that she did not know if what she’d seen had been a dream, conjured by her own mind over the guilt she suspected would never leave her, or a vision, showing either the future or the tragic present. Gathering her knees into her chest and wrapping a blanket around her shoulders, Michiru let herself mourn Haruka. Whether the woman she’d once loved went on breathing, in Michiru’s mind and soul, she was dead. But there was no release or freedom now, just a haunting that surrounded and suffocated like the darkness of night. There was no hiding from the wind.


End file.
